Got my results back from ALS Tribology and the only thing questionable was .12% water. It's a Ford E350 RV with the V-10. It's been sitting so I ran it at idle to warm it up. I thought it got up to operating temp. There is no antifreeze reported. Do you think the water could be from just idling it to warm it up? I don't know where else it could come from. They could not test the viscosity due to the water present???

Also as an FYI, when you send samples in to them in Atlanta, put it in an envelope instead of just mailing the canister. They have a problem with the post office holding the canisters for weeks at a time before delivering them. Lady told me they seem to receive samples in envelopes in a timely manner.

Water condensation could be there just from it sitting for a while. And just bringing it up to operating temp may not be enough to burn it off. You'd probably have to run it longer to get rid of all the moisture.

Trace amounts of moisture in engine oil will most certainly evaporate off over some run time at normal operating temps and be processed by the PCV system. That's one of the reasons the PCV system is there. The closer to the boiling point of water the faster this would happen, but it will occur at less temperature.

We use Karl Fischer at work to determine water content in grease. Anything up to 0.5% is considered normal for new grease. I suspect the same may be attributed to motor oil. Your 0.12% may be as low as you can expect it.

They declined vis test on one of my samples for water too. Seems to be the way they operate. No explanation though.

I've had many times when lab techs wouldn't run a sample through PC because it was too dark, etc. Some labs, the lab tech is responsible for operation and will get dinged for not stopping a sample that could break the machine.

Unless your a multimillion dollar client, they're not going to stop run time if they think your sample will give trouble.